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Science 23 April 2004:
Vol. 304. no. 5670, pp. 567 - 571
DOI: 10.1126/science.1095140
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Reports

Self-Assembly of Ordered, Robust, Three-Dimensional Gold Nanocrystal/Silica Arrays

Hongyou Fan,1,2* Kai Yang,3 Daniel M. Boye,4 Thomas Sigmon,3 Kevin J. Malloy,3 Huifang Xu,2 Gabriel P. López,2 C. Jeffrey Brinker1,2*

We report the synthesis of a new nanocrystal (NC) mesophase through self-assembly of water-soluble NC micelles with soluble silica. The mesophase comprises gold nanocrystals arranged within a silica matrix in a face-centered cubic lattice with cell dimensions that are adjustable through control of the nanocrystal diameter and/or the alkane chain lengths of the primary alkanethiol stabilizing ligands or the surrounding secondary surfactants. Under kinetically controlled silica polymerization conditions, evaporation drives self-assembly of NC micelles into ordered NC/silica thin-film mesophases during spin coating. The intermediate NC micelles are water soluble and of interest for biolabeling. Initial experiments on a metal-insulator-metal capacitor fabricated with an ordered three-dimensional gold nanocrystal/silica array as the "insulator" demonstrated collective Coulomb blockade behavior below 100 kelvin and established the current-voltage scaling relationship for a well-defined three-dimensional array of Coulomb islands.

1 Sandia National Laboratories, Chemical Synthesis and Nanomaterials Department, Advanced Materials Laboratory, 1001 University Boulevard SE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA.
2 The University of New Mexico/NSF Center for Micro-Engineered Materials, Department of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
3 Center for High Technology Materials, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
4 Physics Department, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hfan{at}sandia.gov (H.F.), cjbrink{at}sandia.gov (C.J.B.)

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)